ADDIS ABABA – Africa Leather and Leather Products Institute (ALLPI) announced that its programs and services expedite African integration through the leather sector.
ALLPI Programs Coordinator and Advisor to the Executive Director Prof. Mekonnen Hailemariam told The Ethiopian Herald that headquartered in Addis Ababa, ALLPI provides successive sector training and other technical supports to its 17 member countries in the COMESA and beyond the region.
ALLPI is consolidating ways of harnessing the untapped leather potential of Africa and enabling Africa’s leather sector to become competitive in the global arena, he added.
ALLPI strives to harness the leather sector potential in the region and create more employment opportunities to the youths through augmenting sector competitiveness and knowledge exchange, he stressed.
“Installing proper leather specific strategies, introducing the latest sector technologies, tools, and equipment, mobilizing resource, exchanging best practices, organizing leather trade fairs, providing training, disseminating information on scientific journals, and marketing activities along the leather value chain, among others are the main contributions of the ALLPI.”
According to him, different countries are benefiting from the leather sector training offered by the institute. 200-300 individuals from the members’ countries and other parts of Africa are accessing specialized training opportunities in different programs annually.
Establishing wide-ranging leather and leather products processing industries within Africa that consume African leather resources enables meeting Africans’ leather products demand locally, he emphasized.
As to him, though Ethiopia is the leading country with its leather potential, it lacks modern leather products processing factories and extensive investment in the sector.
More focus should be given to academic institutions and pertinent stakeholders’ active engagements to tap the untapped leather sector potential, he recommended.
ALLPI is carrying out its mandates in the COMESA region leather sector development through the implementation of various programs and projects for member countries to develop their leather sub-sector in the area of human resource and institutional development and capacity building.
The Ethiopian Herald, January 30/2020
BY TEWODROS KASSA
